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The Yachtini Lands in Montauk

THE STOP The Long Island Rail Road drops the Hamptons crowd right at Montauks doorstep.Credit
Gordon M.Grant for The New York Times

Montauk, N.Y.

Lauren Morris’s gold lamé high heels kept getting stuck between the planks of the patio deck.

A male friend who shares her rental house in Southampton had warned her on a recent Saturday night to wear flats to Surf Lodge, the trendy new nightspot for the Hamptons crowd. But she was not the type of woman to have packed party shoes without heels.

Her only alternative were flip-flops, which she only wore “to not touch the floor in my share house,” said Ms. Morris, an account executive in a fashion showroom. “They’re gross.”

Wearing a sun-yellow tube dress, Ms. Morris held a glass of champagne, with a blueberry, a blackberry and a strawberry floating in it, and surveyed the scene. A reggae-influenced band played loudly as young men in pressed oxford shirts and jeans with complicated back-pocket designs were sprawled on ottomans. Eyeing them were tan women in skimpy floral-print sundresses.

“I’ve been coming to the Hamptons for years,” Ms. Morris, 29, shouted. “This is my first time in Montauk.”

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From the train station, its off to the Surf Lodge, where the thumping beat has stirred up the village.Credit
Gordon M.Grant for The New York Times

That’s right, Montauk, known as “The End.” Not Bridgehampton, East Hampton or Southampton, where the thumping fabulousness on display at the Surf Lodge has long been a mark of summertime. Montauk, the easternmost tip of Long Island, is a town that has for generations been distinctly, and proudly low-key, the un-Hampton, where commercial fishermen live and work, and where middle-class families could afford hotel rooms, miniature golf and soft-serve ice cream.

The Surf Lodge, owned by the same group that runs the clubs Cain and GoldBar in Manhattan, is not the only sign of the new Montauk. Chic boutiques dot the village, old seaside motels are being turned into million-dollar condominiums, and an international marina developer who wants to attract megayachts is renovating the rundown 79-year-old yacht club.

The changes have been swelling quietly but steadily for a couple of years, but this summer they are breaking over the town like a storm-driven surge. And many locals, awash in the noisy whitewater, are mad and starting to use what powers they have to fight the newcomers.

“It’s definitely out of control,” said Lisa Grenci, the chairwoman of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, which advises the town council. “This is a taste of the Hamptons they’ve brought in here,” she said, referring to the noise, parking issues and hubbub of the Surf Lodge, which has become the lightning rod for many locals upset over the village’s larger changes.

“The city folk have come out and they want to have fun,” she added. “It’s not the same for us. Our concern is our community and our natural resources.”

Julia Prince, a councilwoman representing Montauk on the East Hampton Town Board, said she realized the end of Montauk’s cultural separateness had arrived when she saw an advertisement for a new hotel, the Solé East, last summer. “It was a woman’s hip, laying on her side,” she recalled, “And it said ‘the hip new Montauk.’ ”

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NIGHT AND DAY The beautiful people start the party in the early evening at the Surf Lodge in Montauk, where
the crowd sustains the mood at night.Credit
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

The hip is not hard to find.

A few steps from the still-seedy Memory Motel, which was the name of a 1976 Rolling Stones song, is Liveable Home, a furnishings store opened last fall by Adrienne Valenza, an interior designer.

“My partner and I thought it would be great to have a store to address things that are missing from Montauk,” Ms. Valenza said, sitting behind a desk not far from a glass “rock bowl” selling for $172. “Montauk is becoming this great shopping destination, so why not?”

On the road leading to Surf Lodge is Tauk, which sells jewelry, clothing and books like “Surfing Photographs from the Seventies Taken by Jeff Devine.” On Main Street is Share with Montauk, a new boutique, selling Panama hats as well as glass orbs containing saltwater and frantically swimming brine shrimp expected to live for three years, a salesclerk said. “Although in ideal conditions they can live 10 years,” he added.

And on State Route 27, a surfboard standing upright on the sidewalk announces the location of Screaming Mimi’s, a vintage clothing shop whose flagship is on Lafayette Street in NoHo and which is in its third season here. “New York, Tokyo, Montauk,” reads the teal-colored surfboard.

The buildings on Montauk’s Main Street still lack the manicured cedar-shingle charm of the Hamptons. The street looks more like a rambling California beach town, circa 1970, laid-back, unstudied, bleached into a certain grayness by the salt air.

At the Shagwong, a bar and restaurant, where fishermen, construction workers, realtors and vacationers have been drinking since 1969, a group of Montauk old-timers were grousing about the changes. “Look at all the places that used to be like this that are gone,” said Harold Foster, a semi-retired carpenter who has lived here since 1967. “The Windjammer, the Harvest, the Blue Marlin. This place and Liar’s are the only places left you can come meet your friends.”

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Credit
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

Perhaps the biggest social trend contributing to the gentrification of Montauk is something out of its control, the growing popularity of surfing and the surfing lifestyle. The number of wave riders at Ditch Plains, the main surfing beach, rivals the July crowd at a popular break in Laguna Beach.

Surf Lodge mines that popularity, with surf movies playing in a loop on a large screen in the lobby. And in its lot, a six-wheeled 1982 Pinzgauer jeep with bench seats, used to ferry guests to Ditch Plains. The Lodge, where celebrities like Tyson Beckford, Jason Lewis and Cynthia Rowley have been spotted, and where Sam Talbot, a “Top Chef” semifinalist runs the kitchen, has made the lifestyle as easy to consume as a Montauk Storm, a cocktail of fresh ginger juice, ginger candy and dark rum.

Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily have done photo sessions there, and the hotel rooms, about $450 a night, are booked every weekend for the rest of the summer, said Steve Kasuba, an owner.

In the last two weeks, the town has slammed the Surf Lodge with a series of legal actions, Ms. Prince said. A violation notice was issued for putting up an outdoor movie screen without the proper permit. The buildings department put the club on notice that its hair salon, Trim, and its surf-inspired clothing boutique, designed by Tracy Feith, are not allowed under its building permit.

The town will also be putting no-parking signs on one of the roads where Surf Lodge customers, who have been driving more than an hour to the hotspot, have been choking traffic, Ms. Prince said. (Lauren Morris and 13 friends paid a taxi $20 each for the roundtrip from Southampton.)

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The popularity of Surf Lodge in Montauk means fewer places to park and no place for a dog to sleep.Credit
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

Another Surf Lodge owner, Jamie Mulholland, said the issues raised by the town are “minor growing pains” that are normal for any fast-growing business.

“They are in the process of being resolved,” he said.

Developers have tried to makeover Montauk before. In the late 19th century, Montauk was primarily a hunting and fishing destination, although a few artists and writers lived here in small cottages. Then in 1925, Carl G. Fisher, the developer who transformed Miami Beach, Fla., into an international playground, bought 10,000 acres, vowing to transform Montauk into Miami Beach of the north.

One of his first projects was the Montauk Yacht Club. Founding members included Vincent Astor, J. P. Morgan Jr., Nelson Doubleday and Edsel Ford.

The stock market crash of 1929 helped drive away the swank crowd, but in 2007, the club was bought by Island Global Yachting, an international developer of marinas, which is led by Andrew Farkas, the grandson of the founder of Alexander’s department store.

Mr. Farkas, who has a house in Southampton, has promised to improve service and spruce up the club’s marina for longtime members while wooing the owners of megayachts. He has spent millions on landscaping and renovations to the club’s hotel rooms, and changed the bar menu. The signature drink is the Yachtini, a mixture of rum, lime, pineapple juice, almond syrup, Grand Marnier and Champagne. A Mega-Yachtini is $100 and comes in a martini glass big enough to hold a carp.

“Montauk is a special place,” Mr. Farkas said in a telephone interview. “What we are trying to do is cultivate that feeling.”

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ENDLESS SUMMER Ditch Plains is home to a growing number of surfers.Credit
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

Not too many decades ago, developers sought to attract a different class of people to Montauk. A new book by Paul Sahre, “Leisurama Now” lovingly chronicles the history of 200 low-key ranch houses that were sold in Montauk in the mid-60s by Macy’s.. The price: as little as $12,990, including land and all furnishings.

Now, an enlarged Leisurama house can sell for $800,000, according to Mr. Sahre. New two-bedroom attached houses on the property of the Panoramic View Hotel are being sold for $2.8 million, luxury oceanfront cabanas included.

FOR years, the beachy Montauk vibe made fellows of all locals, rich and poor, said Lili Adams, better known as the Ditch Witch, the name of the snack cart she has run for 14 years at the beach.

“In the old days, there’s three guys in a bar,” she said, relaying some Montauk folklore. “All three of them look like bums. Two of them are millionaires and one is a bum, but you could never tell who was who.”

Not everything has changed yet. A week ago, around 8 a.m., Jimmy Buffett, the singer, emerged from the ocean at Ditch Plains, carrying a longboard, water dripping from his wetsuit and shaggy curls.

He owned a house in Sag Harbor for about 20 years, Mr. Buffett said, but moved to Montauk four years ago so he could surf every morning. He was on a first-name basis with many of the local surfers, including Tony Caramanico, a former professional surfer who now gives lessons.

Mr. Buffett, 61, said he hoped the town could withstand the forces trying to change it.

“I think people here will be able to figure out who has a genuine connection to surfing and who’s just along for the ride,” he said, adding, “It’s not the most beautiful place in the world. That’s what I like.”